Even a bare-bones system would be
ridiculously costly, and more likely to foster war than prevent it.

Before the GOP-controlled Congress spends billions
of your tax dollars on new, highly controversial weapons in space, you might
think it would seek the opinion of the Defense Department. But no. Strange as
it may seem, Republicans are rushing ahead with space-based missile
interceptors over the objections of the White House and before a Pentagon
review on the subject has been completed.

It’s almost as if congressional leaders want to spend money on space
weapons no matter whether the military wants them or if they even work.

This week Congress approved the development of missile interceptors in
space as part of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, calling for a working prototype by 2022. Last year’s defense bill
contained similar language, but specified that the project would
only move ahead if endorsed by the Defense Department’s ongoing Missile
Defense Review, which
has yet to see the light of day.

Rather than wait for the Pentagon review, this year Congress acted
without it. An amendment proposed
by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, struck out the Pentagon review in the name of
removing “the legal hurdle” to developing space weapons. The effect was to
order up missile interceptors in space whether or not the Pentagon thinks
it’s a good idea.

This gift from Congress has not been well-received. In June, the White
House released a statement saying it “strongly objects” to the Cruz
amendment as an “unfunded mandate,” and urged Congress to wait for the
results of the ongoing review, calling any decision on development
“premature at this point.”

Over at the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves, who leads the Missile
Defense Agency, warned that space-based interceptors would “require a significant
change in national policy” and would be expensive. His predecessor, then-
Vice Adm. James Syring, said in 2016, “I
have serious concerns about the technical feasibility of interceptors in
space, and I have serious concerns about the long-term affordability of a
program like that.”

As futuristic as they may sound, spaced-based weapons are an old—and
bad—idea. The Reagan administration tried and failed to develop a
space-based laser as part of its Strategic Defense Initiative. Then the
George H.W. Bush administration switched from
lasers to kinetic kill vehicles with Brilliant Pebbles and, when that
failed, came up with Global Protection Against Limited Strikes, or
GPALS. Eerily similar to Congress’s current
iteration, GPALScalled for a scaled-down system to protect against limited
ballistic missile threats from regional powers like Iraq, Iran, and
North Korea.

But the false allure of space weapons only hides its immense technical and
financial hurdles, not to mention its hugely destabilizing effects. A 2003
American Physical Society study showed
that in order to have just one satellite-based interceptor on station above
a launch site at any given time would require a network of at least
1,600 satellites (with a corresponding five- to ten-fold increase in
American space-launch capacity). That number nearly matches all the active satellites in orbit today. And yet the
system could easily be overwhelmed by an adversary launching multiple,
inexpensive missiles at once.

In addition to spending hundreds of billions for a paper-thin system,
Congress could also spook Russia and China into a dangerous arms race.
Since the 1960s, rival powers have maintained a fragile norm against
placing weapons in space. The deployment of space-based interceptors would
irreparably destroy that precedent. Moreover, any interceptor that is able
to target an enemy missile can also knock an enemy satellite out of the sky.

Against this capability, the claim that space-based interceptors have a
purely defensive mission would ring hollow in Moscow and Beijing, who would
be forced to deploy anti-satellite weapons of their own. This would greatly
increase the likelihood of a shooting war in space, posing a grave risk to
the satellites upon which the U.S. military (and
civil society) depends. As the nation that is most dependent on satellites
for military and civil communications, we have the most to lose from a
space war.

None of this is inevitable, but the development of space weapons greases
the skids for this dangerous outcome. The United States should recognize
space-based interceptors for what they really are: infeasible,
unaffordable, and utterly destabilizing. Congress should reject space
weapons and save our money—and our satellites—instead.